been in use from the year of its origin. It is not known when the Romans
began to use their era. The Olympiads were not in current use till about
the middle of the 3rd century B.C., when Timaeus, as already mentioned,
set the example of reckoning by them.

Even after the adoption in Europe of the Christian era, a great variety
of methods of dating--national, provincial and ecclesiastical--grew up
and prevailed for a long time in different countries, thus renewing in
modern times the difficulties experienced in ancient times from
diversities of reckoning. An acquaintance with these various methods is
indispensable to the student of the charters, chronicles and legal
instruments of the middle ages.

In reckoning years from any fixed epoch in constant succession, the
number denoting the years is necessarily always on the increase. But
rude nations and illiterate people seldom attach any definite idea to
large numbers. Hence it has been a practice, very extensively followed,
to employ cycles or periods, consisting of a moderate number of years,
and to distinguish and reckon the years by their number in the cycle.
The Chinese and other nations of Asia reckon, not only the years, but
also the months and days, by cycles of sixty. The Saros of the
Chaldaeans, the Olympiad of the Greeks, and the Roman Indiction are
instances of this mode of reckoning time. Several cycles were formerly
known in Europe; but most of them were invented for the purpose of
adjusting the solar and lunar divisions of time, and were rather
employed in the regulation of the calendar than as chronological eras.
They are frequently, however, of very great use in fixing dates that
have been otherwise imperfectly expressed, and consequently form
important elements of chronology. (W. L. R. C.)

_Modern Results of Archaeological Research_.

When Queen Victoria came to the English throne, 4004 B.C. was still
accepted, in all sobriety, as the date of the creation of the world.
Perhaps no single statement could more vividly emphasize the change in
the point of view from which scholars regard the chronology of ancient
history than the citation of this indisputable fact. To-day, though
Bibles are still printed with the year 4004 B.C. in the margin of the
first chapter of Genesis, no scholar would pretend to regard this
reference seriously. On the contrary, the scholarship of to-day regards
the fifth millennium B.C. as well within the historical period for su